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Posted on 04/20/2026 2:08:34 PM PDT by DFG
The growing anger over the AI industry’s obsession with building massive and resource-intensive data centers across the country is as palpable than ever.
A recent survey by the Pew Research Center highlighted widespread public concern over the facilities’ environmental harms, effects on home energy costs, and the quality of life of nearby residents.
These concerns do seem justified. Experts have found that data centers can spike local electricity prices, generate copious amounts of greenhouse gases, and place a major strain on freshwater resources.
Now, a self-described content creator and digital artist named Will Hollingsworth who spoke up during a city council meeting in Ravenna, Ohio — a small town of 11,000 residents — is turning heads with his passionate argument against data centers. The council’s chambers became overwhelmed with a crowd of almost 100 people during the April 10 meeting, which hosted a debate over a proposed 12-month moratorium on data center construction in the area inspired by a nearby community’s own moratorium.
Hollingsworth’s four-minute speech perfectly summarizes why the backlash is starting to reach a tipping point, as more politicians are calling for a moratorium on new construction.
“These facilities can use millions of gallons of water per day,” he said, as seen in a video that went viral over the weekend. “We are being asked to drain our reservoirs so a chatbot can write a poem or so our sheriff can generate a picture of himself standing next to Bigfoot,” he added, picking up laughter in the room.
Hollingsworth said that he used to rely on AI at his job overseeing video content production at a mattress company, making his point of view particularly noteworthy. He explained that he used to feed AI image generating app Midjourney “prompts to create the perfect commercial, training the very machine that would eventually replace me as three months later they would lay me off.”
Now he’s become a foe of the tech, he said.
“They want us to trust a trillion dollar industry that tells us with a straight face that they can suck five million gallons of water out of our ground a day,” Hollingsworth argued, to “use it as a liquid heat sink, and return it to our rivers without a single consequence.”
Yet the water “does not stay in the loop,” he explained, but “evaporates into the sky by millions of gallons,” while AI companies downplay the amount of “forever chemical runoff” which is used to “bleed the lines to remove toxic sludge.”
“They say the water is filled once and recycled forever,” Hollingsworth said. “In a laboratory, that might be true. But we aren’t living in a laboratory. We’re living in Ohio.”
The content creator also pointed out how few jobs these data centers could offer, despite being a massive strain on resources.
“A big employer who uses the water of 50,000 people… which only hires about ten people is not an employer,” Hollingsworth said. “They are an extraction.”
“I am not a cynic when it comes to technology,” he concluded. “I am a believer in community. I believe that a drop of clean water for a Ravenna child is worth more than a billion AI generated images. Let us choose the child.”
His powerful speech clearly struck a chord. Beyond the assembled committee voting for a one-year moratorium on all new data centers in the area, other netizens lauded him for speaking up.
“There it is right there,” one Reddit user wrote. “Lies, lies and more lies from megacorps invested up to their eyeballs in having just a few people in government believe them.”
“God damn that was good,” another user wrote. “Seriously this should be used as a script in every county these corporations are hustling.”
The fight is far from over. Ravenna is only one of several locations across the state being eyed for data center expansion projects. And plenty of other battles are being fought in other parts of the country as well, as the anger continues to grow.
Just earlier this week, voters in a small town outside of St. Louis, Missouri, were furious after city council approved a $6 billion data center. As Politico reports, local residents showed up in droves, successfully unseating four incumbents mere days later.
“I do hope other towns stand up and speak out like I did,” Hollingsworth later argued in a comment on Reddit. “I know I’m not the only good orator here in the country, maybe this will inspire a wave of political action!”
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Video of Ravenna, OH City Council meeting referenced in this article.
Huh… I wonder how he’d feel if he still had the job.
What actually pisses off folks the most is the noise. Generally low level, or vibration, 24/7.
The guy makes an interesting argument. But unfortunately for him, “big” usually wins in the end.
Big government
Big agriculture
Big pharma
Etc.
Besides, as tech keeps improving, what next year will require the processing power of a massive building of computers can probably 10 years later be done with one room of servers. We will have built all of these buildings and massive infrastructure of power and cooling that'll soon be overkill. For example, the HP laptop I'm typing this post on is running a SQL Server DB engine that I use to study investment trends as well as my solar telemetry for my home. It's just a normal laptop by today's standards ... running a database engine that not too long ago required a massive server. The massive AI data centers will be obsolete within 10 years after they're built.
There are something like 3 data center proposals for Maine. One, at least on the surface, seems to make sense. A retired paper mill is the proposed site (Jay, Maine). Solar power sufficient for self reliance, recirculated water with clean discharge, 50 dB noise level outside the facility (vs 100+ for the paper mill). The other two will rely on local power, at least for the most part. We’ll see when the real data comes out.
Seems like being next the ocean is the ideal location. Plenty of water to take away the heat, all kinds of life that would take advantage of that heat.
More than a few of us wonder about the bank accounts of the commissioners, whether they have had any "contributions".
I think the answer is not to ban them, but to force them to do what is necessary to ensure any water used is returned as it was.
If they heat the water, require them to cool and treat for chemicals before returning it to any waterway.
It’s hard to for me to worry too much over the use of water from an Eastern river, where rainfall is plenty.
They may worry about 100s of 1,000s of gallons being used, but ten times more actually flows down to the ocean.
Again, regulate not ban.
Remember clean coal? It is relatively clean when processed correctly. However, the climate cultists just want it totally banned, which is not a smart economic reason or even an environmental reason that can’t be mitigated.
What happens if the data centers don’t get built?
“The council’s chambers became overwhelmed with a crowd of almost 100 people...”
I am still trying to puzzle this out. They must have a rather easy to placate populace.
I still don’t understand why these data centers need fresh water.
No recycling? Just dump it out? Makes no sense.
Scale and, in rural areas, visual intrusion are issues.
I live in the city, but Northern Virginia seems determined to develop every square foot of buildable land as fast as possible. Sprawling residential developments, sprawling office parks, sprawling strip malls ... and the piedmont is disappearing fast.
It seems that Civil War battlefields are to data centers as trailer parks are to tornados.
The tech bros don’t care what they pave. None of them live here, and most of them are cubicle rats anyhow. County government, which controls zoning, is always one election away from being flipped.
But Big Tech is hellbent on building out AI — so dang it, why can’t they just put the data centers in the Mohave Desert where they belong? Or do something really useful and work with local governments to reclaim brownfields sites in distressed cities, the deal being contingent on the city doing the sensible things it should have done long ago on taxes and regulation. The crummy parts of Memphis, East Chicago, or Charleston, West Virginia would be perfect. The city could pay for clearing the good riddance stuff, enact a competitive tax structure, and turn over a viable site with all the basic infrastructure already in place.
Redevelopment of brownfields sites is a big issue. I can’t recall even a whisper of it in the tech center discussions.
NO___THE THREAT TO WATER IS THE WORST.
YOU CAN CREATE POWER-—
YOU CANNOT CREATE WATER
THEIR VERSION OF “CLEAN DISCHARGE” & YOUR VERSION OF “CLEAN DISCHARGE” IS 2 ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THINGS.
PLMerite wrote: “What happens if the data centers don’t get built?”
They will be built in China.
sphinx wrote: “Or do something really useful and work with local governments to reclaim brownfields sites in distressed cities, the deal being contingent on the city doing the sensible things it should have done long ago on taxes and regulation. The crummy parts of Memphis, East Chicago, or Charleston, West Virginia would be perfect.”
When was the last time the democrat politicians running Memphis, Chicago, or Charleston, etc., did something sensible?
I worked a couple summers at the paper mill in Westbrook, ME. Sen. Muskie was scheduled to visit to look at the progress being made to clean up the discharge into the river. Starting a few days before the visit the discharge was diverted to a holding pond. Muskie came and the river was clean (no white crust). He was impressed and left. Then the spigot got turned back on.
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